


Do You, Uh, Like The Cure

by softieghost



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Kiss, Getting Together, I mean technically it is, M/M, Mutual Pining, it's ya girl out here with an early 2000s au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 10:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13292472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softieghost/pseuds/softieghost
Summary: There’s a new bag in the breakroom, which, Yuri figures, probably belongs to the new boy at the counter that he passed on his way in. His boss didn’t tell anyone they were getting a new employee but in the beginning of Summer kids are getting jobs in between red Solo cup parties and updating their Top Eight which means, in turn, the store needs some more help.Yuri put himself right in New Boy’s sightline, feet spread, asserting dominance. That was his counter to lean on, after all.“What’s with you, asshole?”--In which Yuri owns a flip phone, a MySpace page, and definitely doesn't have a crush on his coworker.





	Do You, Uh, Like The Cure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tootsonnewts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tootsonnewts/gifts).



There’s a new bag in the breakroom, which, Yuri figures, probably belongs to the new boy at the counter that he passed on his way in. His boss didn’t tell anyone they were getting a new employee but in the beginning of Summer kids are getting jobs in between red Solo cup parties and updating their Top Eight which means, in turn, the store needs some more help. The bag in the breakroom has band pins on it but Yuri doesn’t have time to investigate if New Boy has good taste because -

“Yuri, you’re late again!”

According to everyone at the Parkview Mall the store manager of this particular Hot Topic was a complete ass. According to Yuri, he was a complete and total motherfucking ass.

Tying his hair up in a small half-ponytail Yuri blew by Mr. Feltsman mid-yell and stepped out onto the store floor. New Boy was hunched over the counter, looking out the door of the store into the mall atrium. He looked handsome in the yeah-I-know kind of way, like the Senior boys at school, not they they would ever come into Yuri’s store. But that was neither here nor there.

Yuri put himself right in New Boy’s sightline, feet spread, asserting dominance. That was  _ his  _ counter to lean on, after all.

“What’s with you, asshole?”

New Boy lifted his eyebrow, turned on his heel, and walked into the breakroom. His shift was probably done now that Yuri was there - the store wasn’t big enough to warrant two employees all the time, especially if Mr. Feltsman was already in the back running inventory or jerking off or whatever it was that he did in the office all day.

_ Excellent.  _ Yuri stole New Boy’s position at the counter, leaning on his forearms over the glass case full of Manic Panic and jewelry too “valuable” to be hung up on the spinners.  _ I’ll show him who’s boss around here. _

 

* * *

 

The next time Yuri saw New Boy, who’s was named Otabek (weird, but his name was Yuri, so whatever), he was wearing a shirt with a goat skull and a pentagram emblazoned with CELINE DION in flaming letters.

“Is that supposed to be, like, ironic or something?” Yuri asked.

“Or something, I guess.” Otabek said as he folded shirts on the glass counter.

If this guy wasn’t such a colossal jerk Yuri would probably like him. He had a leather jacket and the tattered, black Jansport bag always plopped on the table in the breakroom had good pins (original punk, not radio-pop-emo like the rest of the mall goths that traversed through his store), and he always commented on the music playing over the speakers. He’d ask these questions out of the blue, like he was trying to figure Yuri out.

“Death Cab or The Postal Service?” Otabek asked, dark eyes leveled with Yuri’s as they hung up trashy belly button studs or reorganized Harry Potter merchandise.

Yuri stared right back. “Death Cab, obviously.” he said before turning away. Ultimately he didn’t care what Otabek’s own opinion was; he knew he was right regardless.

“Hm. I figured of Gibbard’s music you’d be more into All Time Quarterback. It’s kind of weird, like you.”

“Fuck that’s supposed to mean, Altin?”

“Not much. I think we’re alike, anyway.”

He said it with a shrug and turned back to the wall of mass-release vinyls he was organizing. It wasn’t the kind of line Yuri would have expected to make his stomach do flip-flops and yet, here he was, gaping at the back of his coworker in the middle of the afternoon.

_ What the actual fuck? _

 

* * *

 

Days later, Yuri woke with a start to his phone ringing. He flipped it open, charms rattling, as an unknown number showed dimly on the screen.

“Yeah?” He yawned, scratching his stomach under the thin sheet pulled over him. His ceiling fan rattled with the effort of cooling his room.

“Yuri? This is Yuri, right?” Otabek’s voice came through the phone tinny and distant. Yuri recognized his tone immediately - how could he not after having to spend nearly every shift of the past few weeks with him - but he sounded off. Far away, almost.

“Why the fuck are you calling me at 8am?” Yuri closed his eyes against the bright summer sun that came through his broken Venetian blinds. Mom kept saying she was going to fix them but they remained broken and dusty for the past two summers.

“Can you cover my shift? I’m sick.”

Yuri sighed, scrunching his already closed eyes even tighter together. Today was supposed to be his off day and he had full plans of sleeping in, jerking off, and keeping his bedroom door closed except to pee and eat. It was going to be the perfect day. Heavenly.

“Fucking hell, Otabek. What time?”

“Closing.”

Yuri flipped over onto his stomach and stretched out, nearly kicking a sleeping Potya off the foot of his bed. Closing was the worst shift. There were zero customers, nothing to do to keep busy, and you weren’t allowed to use the work computers to check MySpace or try and sign up for Facebook or text anyone (not that Yuri really texted anyone besides Mila).

Then again…

Yuri needed the money. His current Converse had a literal hole in the left sole and his favorite pants were getting worn down dangerously thin at the thighs. Warped Tour was coming up. He needed to add to his savings if he was ever going to have the money to go to college and get out of the shitty town he was in.

“Yeah. I’ll take it.”

“Thanks man, you’re my hero.” Otabek said all in one breath before hanging up with a click. The dial tone hummed in Yuri’s ear as he buried his head in his pillow and tried not to linger on how the word ‘hero’ made him want to smile.

 

* * *

 

Otabek was a liar. A goddamned liar and a cheat and piece of shit. Yuri stared at his phone, rereading the text that Mila had just sent him. With his store keys in one hand and his half-broken flip phone in the other he walked out of the mall, half an hour past closing time, and into the dim evening.

_ y didnt u tell me ur coworker was a dj _

_ the fuck you mean mila _

_ im watching him spin _

That piece of shit wasn’t going to hear the end of it when he rolled up for their shared morning shift the next day tired and hungover, playing it off as sick, looking for sympathy. He was getting the shitty jobs, the petty retail revenge - cleaning up damaged hair dye containers that always stained Yuri’s skin, reorganizing the clearance racks, licking Yuri’s boots clean. Well, maybe not that one.

In the morning he was still furious. His thoughts had begun to circle themselves. _  Then again, maybe he should lick them clean.  _ Yuri mused to himself as he stomped through the parking lot on his way to unlock the store from the back of the mall.

The morning was oddly chilly, even though it was nearing the beginning of July, and he tugged at the tattered sleeves of his thin hoodie. He’d gotten it a few years ago at some no name concert downtown, a shitty punk band taking up a bar stage back when he had a functional fake ID. The cops had lifted it from him a few months ago. He was still bitter.

Turning the corner Yuri was stopped face to face with none other than the shithead in question. Otabek smiled at him around his burned-down cigarette. No trace of a night out lingered on his face - no eye bags, no tired smile, no smell of alcohol. Just a grin and an eyebrow quirk. It made Yuri even more angry to know he wasn’t feeling the ill effects of his backstabbing shift-ditching.

“I’m mad at you, asshole.”

“Oh?” Otabek flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and stomped on it. His boots looked new and shiny.

Yuri took three tries to jam his keys in the lock on the metal door.

“Heard you went out last night.” Yuri shoved his shoulder into the old metal door. The hinges had long rusted shut and it stuck sometimes, especially when the weather did weird things. He shoved it again, to no avail.

“Yeah, my friend JJ dropped out of his slot and asked me to cover.” His confidence belied no shame, pissing Yuri off further.

Otabek put one hand to the door and pushed it open. It creaked and groaned but it opened under his weight, no help from Yuri, apparently.

“You didn’t have to fucking lie about it though.”

The walked through the back stockroom in the dark and the silence until Yuri dragged his hand along the wall at the far door and found the light switch by dim flip phone light. Yuri sighed.

“You’re not going to say sorry?”

Otabek cocked his head to the side as he dropped his bag to the floor of the breakroom. The pins rattled together as it hit the tile.

“I’ll make it up to you. I’m playing this Saturday night at the same club. I can get you in even though you’re underage. Sound good?”

Yuri responded by stomping into the sales floor and flicking on the light. Today was going to suck.

 

* * *

 

Mila was giving him The Look. The horrible, no good, awful Look she had all the time when she thought she knew something Yuri didn’t. She always thought she had the gossip. She always thought she knew better, even though she was just as dumb and young as Yuri was. Mila was giving him The Look as they sat together on a bench in front of an Auntie Anne’s and ate nasty pretzels on their lunch breaks that were always coincidentally timed together.

Mila worked on the other end of the mall at a Lush with the worst man in existence - Viktor Nikiforov, an airheaded and cruel man who was currently in the throes of some deep depression because he failed to get the number of some equally airheaded man at a club the week prior. Served him right if you asked Yuri.

Mila’s smile got wider the more Yuri refused to answer her question. She looked like a demented blowfish, smiling with her cheeks full of pretzel. There was red hair dye on her forehead if you looked closely.

“Yuriiiii, you’re going to be a Senior this year. It’s time you got a boyfriend or something. His music was good!”

“No. He’s horrible. And he’s in college, anyway.”

“Yuriiiiii!!”

 

* * *

 

In the days leading up to the supposed Saturday Show Yuri remained cold to Otabek as he couldn’t be a good Plisetsky if he couldn’t hold a grudge. Refusing to let people live peaceful lives was a sport and Yuri wasn’t about to let his absent father down. Not this week, at least.

Otabek continued to bug him to know if he was coming or not, saying he needed to know for sure so he could get a guest pass and figure out who was bouncing so they wouldn’t get in trouble as if he wasn’t underage himself. At nineteen-and-a-half Otabek wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of adult decision making.

On Monday Yuri gave a shrug, on Tuesday a ‘let me check my schedule’, and on Wednesday Yuri avoided Otabek all together. It’s not that he didn’t want to go, it’s just that he had never made anything easy for anyone and he wasn’t going to start now. On Thursday Yuri wasn’t in the store and turned his phone off so he could browse the internet in dial-up peace. On Friday he found Otabek’s music up on MySpace and begrudgingly started to like it.

He mixed rock and electronic in a way that anyone who was a beginner would mangle but Yuri found himself wanting to dance. It was terrible.

In the future Yuri would consider this moment, staring into his computer with music blaring out of the terrible speakers while his mom yelled at him from downstairs as the moment Cupid put a godawful, terrible, no good arrow through his heart. He hated it.

On Saturday Yuri texted Otabek.

_ see you there _

And got a text back.

_ Good. _

Yuri lay in his bed, stretched out in the slatted sun with Potya as he definitely didn’t count the hours down. He wasn’t the one looking at the red blinking LED readout. Not him. Instead, he texted Mila, 94287 87 424 (whats up hag), and tried to make his responses spaced out like he was doing something else. Yuri was the master of texting and making it seem like he was busy. He was bound to get that as his superlative plastered right next to his scowling senior year photo.

He stretched, and he surfed, and he got dressed about four times.

At precisely 7:13 (thirteen minutes late) a car honked outside his window.

Peering outside he saw Otabek with his head poking out of the driver’s side window of a rusted red four door idling on the side of the street. It wasn’t quite dark yet but it was dim and he’d managed to catch the streetlight. He looked good. Yuri frowned.

The car itself smelt like cigarettes and weed and fast food but it looked relatively clean. Yuri was only slightly terrified of imminent car crash-y death when he noticed Otabek’s leather gloved hand resting loosely on the steering wheel.

“You’re late.” Yuri huffed.

“You made me wait a week to tell me you were coming. Forgive me, your highness.” Otabek grinned at him as he spoke.

Otabek gunned the engine and yanked the wheel, taking them down the street a little too fast. Yuri could feel his heart pounding in his chest as the car jerked off the curb and they began to speed to downtown. The streetlights and buildings flashed past his window while he stared out of it. His city was shitty, and poor, and rusted out, but it was almost livable when you drove fast enough down the main streets. He could tolerate the half-empty apartment complexes and abandoned factories more and more the faster Otabek drove.

“Do you always drive like a maniac?” Yuri asked, speaking loudly over the blaring bass of Otabek’s stereo.

“Only when I have new people in the passenger seat.” He smiled again as he spoke and Yuri couldn’t help but let his eyes stay on Otabek’s profile for half a second too long.

Their arrival at the club was quick. Yuri was half-sad and half-relieved as he stepped out of the car and into the night. The evening was warm and Yuri was glad for his choice of slashed and shredded and bleach-stained tank top. He felt cool in the breeze although he was sure he’d be sweating later.

They stepped into the dark club and Yuri’s eyes went wide.

“You see that booth? Up there? That’s where I’m gonna be.” Otabek said as they walked through the back doorway. He was pointing up at an enclosed area built into the side of what was supposed to be a stage but looked more like rickety platforms on nothing but risers.  “And you, Yuri, will be down there. That way I can keep my eyes on you.” He continued, gesturing to the club floor.

Yuri nodded.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning Yuri didn’t so much feel regret as he did an intense and pounding headache right behind his eyes. His mouth was dry but watery at the same time. He wanted food but looking at the fridge made his throat constrict with horrible pre-barf. He’d never been hungover before. He hated it.

What he did like, though, was the ways his legs still hurt from dancing. He liked the fact that Otabek’s number was officially saved in his phone, and that he’d been looked at all night (by whom, of course, he wasn’t ready to admit).

In the afternoon, when he had to drag his sorry ass to work, he finally felt regret. But, by the looks of things, so did Otabek.

The Summer continued like that for the most part. They worked, they talked, Otabek asked obscure music questions, and Yuri sat in his passenger seat. Otabek took him places often. They’d go to work together if their schedules allowed it, they went to Otabek’s club on the occasional weekend, and they drove around the city together in search of food, music, and sunshine. Fast food bags would litter Otabek’s floor for days before they got cleaned up, only to be replaced a few days later.

Yuri continued to refuse to admit he smiled wider when he saw Otabek. He went home and looked at porn and jerked off and didn’t think about him even once. He forced all Otabek-related thoughts out of his head. Or at least, he tried.

A heat wave befell the town in mid-July. It was hot even inside the mall where the AC blasted out of every store front. In the atrium the glass ceiling created a greenhouse and any smart observer could see people skirt the sun and walk around the mall only in shadows. The crowds still came in, though, in order to seek refuge from the blistering heat outside. Yuri could swear he would leave sweaty palm marks on the glass counter of the shop.

On yet another suffy, sweltering afternoon of mall-based hell, Yuri got a small surprise. Otabek was leaning against one of the larger displays fanning himself. His hair was pushed out of his face and his cheeks looked red.

“Oi, Yuri. My friend is bailing on me this weekend. You wanna go up to Warped? I’ve got an extra ticket now.”

Yuri’s hand almost slipped out from under his weight. Of course he wanted to go. He’d been the past two Summers and wasn’t ready to break tradition quite yet. And going with his new-found best friend (Mila be damned)? Well, who was he to say no?

“Mm. I dunno. I’ll let you know”.

Then again, who was he to make things easy, still, after all this time?

“Yeah, yeah, let me know.” Otabek smirked. Yuri hated it.

Just as he did for the first time they saw each other outside of work, Yuri didn’t make his move until the eleventh hour. He trusted Otabek to wait for him, and he wasn’t disappointed. His text the morning of was a simple, “When are you picking me up?”. His answer, “Two hours. Get ready.”

The issue with that, though, was that it could take Yuri more than two hours to get ready if he was willing to put in the energy. His closet exploded before him. Black on black on black on dark purple on cheetah print rained down on his floor as he paired different shirts with his only good black pants. His hair went up and down while the tie at his wrist collected more and more little blonde strands yanked directly out of his scalp.

The final product was a flustered but okay looking tiger shirt, ripped jeans, and his hair half up behind his ears because he couldn’t quite decide.

Yuri scowled at himself in the mirror. A car honked outside.

Otabek’s read beater was parked in the same spot it always was while Otabek himself was perched on the hood smoking a cigarette. He leaned with one foot up on the bumper and the other on the ground. He looked good. Yuri hated it.

Yuri stomped down his steps, making his mom holler at him, and left the house, door swinging shut with a bang behind him. He went around the corner of the block to where Otabek was idling his car. He was still sitting there on the hood with his burned-down cigarette in his mouth. With a huff he exhaled through his nose, blowing smoke everywhere, and flicked the butt down onto the ground.

“You ready?” He said, slipping off the hood and into the driver’s seat.

“Always.” Yuri responded.

He liked being Otabek’s passenger. He liked how he fit into Otabek’s car. He liked that he could recognize all the little bumps and scratches at this point, where in his first trip his eyes scanned the dashboard looking for something familiar that he couldn’t find. Now he knew the key knick on the bottom left of the glove box and the water stain on the floor mat. He settled right into Otabek’s seat, head hitting the rest, and he grinned.

“I heard it’s gonna rain today.”

The drive was long, and winding, and slow. The venue was at the top of a mountain about an hour away from Yuri’s house. The closer they got the slower they had to drive. All the cars they could see, eventually, were headed in the same direction. There was a little green jeep next to them with girls with long hair and barely-there tops. Behind them, a black convertible had bass leaking out of it so loud the cars around them were shaking. Ahead, the road grew steeper and faded into the grey sky.

The energy was electric, even in the dirt parking lot at the top of the mountain. The air was hot and humid and the crowds were alive. Yuri’s head swiveled around as he watched people pass he and Otabek on their walk to the entrance gates.

Their steps were in sync.

“Who’re we seeing first?” Yuri asked, having to raise his voice over the noise of the crowds that squished them close together.

“You chose.”

“Um.” Yuri responded. He had the printed schedule in his hands but it was crumpled from his drawstring bag. He scanned the page as fast as he could, trying to make a the best choice he could. Otabek’s intense gaze made him want to sweat with the pressure alone.

“Well, The Ataris are on soon?” He offered.

“Cool.”

Although Yuri was taller than him Otabek cut a path through the crowd much easier than he. Some combination of his glare, his all black wardrobe, and his jawline made people step out of his way while Yuri followed behind him. Yuri, when he was with Otabek, felt invisible. Untouchable.

The sun shown off the grey clouds overhead, reflecting back at Yuri’s sunglasses as they walked through the festival grounds. All the while Otabek looked back at him, over his shoulder.

“Hurry up!”

And so Yuri hurried.

The mass of people at the stage jostled and swayed with the music. Yuri was pressed up against Otabek’s side as they swam through the crowd, skin to skin. There was no avoiding it, not that Yuri wanted to. He felt hot with sun and fire as they watched, and sang, and jumped. He ignored how his feet hurt, and how he was already thirsty, and the feeling of his throat already beginning to dry in the heat and sound of the concerts.

Otabek led him around the entire day, going from booth to booth and stage to stage. They danced, and ate, and sang. Yuri’s voice got smaller and scratchier.

Otabek seemed to know people wherever they went. Yuri was introduced to dozens of friends and acquaintances and former coworkers between band sets and snack breaks.

“This is my friend, Yuri.” He said time and time again, glancing over at him.

Otabek also seemed to know every word to every song they heard, always singing along even though the crowds were so loud Yuri couldn’t hear his voice. But he could see Otabek mouthing along and his throat jumping with the effort, so Yuri sang too, refusing to feel embarrassed for his passion.

As they day rolled on the sky grew darker and darker. The air became heavy with the impending storm. Yuri could feel it in his veins even as he began to tire from the heat. He wasn’t about to stop chasing Otabek around the fair grounds, nor was he going to stop telling him what shows they should see next. Yuri made those decisions but it was Otabek who go them there.

Yuri threw his hands up, stretching, His shoulder blades popped and his skin felt tight where he had gotten burned despite the cloud cover. He knew he was going to be sore tomorrow but he didn’t much mind, not as loud crowd chatter swirled around them.

He looked up at the sky, trying to assess the clouds, and felt a cold raindrop hit his face.

“It’s starting. Who should we see before they shut everything down?” Yuri said, turning to look at Otabek again. He was shocked to see Otabek was already looking at him. A small smile was on his face.

“Gibbard is playing somewhere here. Figured we were obligated to go see him.” Otabek’s deep voice cut through the noise easily.

Yuri pulled out his map of the grounds, ready to search for where they were headed. Otabek’s hand grabbed his wrist, though, and pulled him along. Yuri stumbled, trying to keep up as Otabek lead through the people once again.

Otabek took him around the side of the hoard of people that had already gathered in front of the main stage. Yuri was confused for a moment before Otabek began to push into the front. Otabek had snuck them in from the side so they only had to fight for their spot for a moment. Girls in cut up t-shirts and boys with hair hanging in front of their faces made room for them until they were nestled into the very front. Yuri was pressed into the barricades uncomfortably but with Otabek by his side he stuck his ground. Everytime their arms brushed or their hips hit each other Yuri had to pull back, not wanting to lean too obviously into his friend’s touch.

He had never been sure about anything, but he was sure this Summer was going to mean something to him in the future. He had never liked someone so much, so hard, and so dearly. He’d never had a friend like Otabek.  He’d never felt so comfortable in his own skin.

Although he knew Otabek would be gone at the end of August, back to college upstate, he wanted to believe he meant something to him.

Yuri glanced at him,  and saw he was staring up at the stage, and followed his gaze.

The stage was set. A stool with a microphone, a platform with other instruments, and speakers lining each side stared back at them.

The crowd cheered so loud Yuri nearly had to cover his ears when the stage filled with people, and then when they began to perform. Although the songs themselves were less ear-shattering than some other bands’, the crowd was just as lively and loud as the other shows had been. That’s what he liked about concerts like this, where everyone was packed in tight and shouting along - it was as if they came together just to share in one moment before dispersing again.

Rain came down faster and harder the more songs were played. Yuri faced the sky, wetness hitting him, and he inhaled deeply, letting the cool air wash over him.    


“I think this is the last song.” Otabek shouted at him, breaking Yuri out of his head.

“I’m fucking soaking wet! It better be!” He shouted back.

The song that played was slow. It was beautiful. Yuri closed his eyes against the rain and hummed along, still feeling high from the crowd and the music and the feeling of Otabek next to him.

When he opened his eyes, he could see his friend looking at him.

“The fuck are you looking at?” Yuri shouted.

Otabek reached out, awkwardly from the tiny amount of space between them, and put his hand on Yuri’s chin. His skin felt hot. Something that had been twisted up in Yuri’s stomach released, letting him relax for half a second before he tensed again.

Otabek’s kiss was gentle, but he smiled into it. Rain dripped into Yuri’s mouth, but he smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> they kiss in the rain because ultimately, it's the most emo thing to do. 
> 
> the song playing is almost certainly I Will Follow You Into the Dark.


End file.
